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News & Updates
ADP Congratulates Our 2008 Scholars
Amigos de Patzún is proud to announce that our second pair of high school students have graduated from high school with professional degrees. Both Johnny Gonzales, who graduated as a mechanic, and Julia Rebeca Chirix, who is now a certified teacher, have been with ADP since they entered Junior High 7 years ago. In that time, ADP staff and volunteers report that both Johnny and Julia Rebeca have evolved from shy village kids to confident young para-professionals, ready to compete for positions in the job market. Johnny and Julia Rebeca have beaten the odds. Statistically, the pair is likely to be the only students of their respective first grade classes to graduate from high school.
Johnny and Julia Rebeca will be invited to remain engaged with Amigos de Patzún and to continue to mentor younger ADP scholars.
ADP Scholar Selection for 2009
Eight new scholars will receive an ADP scholarship in 2009, the largest class in ADP history! Six of our new students will be entering the 7th grade at local middle schools, while two students will be studying for their high school degrees. Scholars were chosen through a competitive selection process which takes into account previous grades, teacher recommendations, essays, a written exam and personal interviews with students and parents. An ADP lunch was held in November to welcome the new scholars and their parents to the program. We wish them well as they begin the school year in January 2009.
ADP Announces Partnership with Miracles in Action
ADP is pleased to announce a new partnership with Miracles in Action, a NGO active in Guatemala, to expand the scope to activities to support education for rural students. Miracles in Action and ADP share a mission to empower rural Guatemalans to develop their communities through education and sustainable programming. This collaboration has allowed us to bring on our local director, Anacleto Catu, on board full-time. Anacleto is the key to ADP’s success in many ways, and we have no doubt that by fully dedicating his efforts to the organization, ADP scholars and aspirants will benefit exponentially. One of Anacleto’s first tasks is to develop a teacher training program.
For more information on Miracles in Action, please visit their website at www.miraclesinaction.org.
ADP and Miracles in Action Launch Teacher Trainings
We at ADP recognize that the ability to recruit competitive students from rural communities into a scholarship program operating in highly demanding urban settings is fundamentally dependent on the quality of education rural students receive. Only 2.6% of Guatemala’s GDP is spent on education and rural schools are hurting for materials and support1. Teachers in rural areas receive very little in-service training and often do not receive quality materials or text books for their classrooms. In addition, teachers working in these rural communities almost exclusively live in urban Patzun. They have the long commutes ranging from 30-80 minutes, which often includes physically strenuous hikes into mountain towns. Yet teachers in rural communities receive the same compensation as their urban colleagues. This dynamic frequently results in reduced instructional time in rural classrooms, and low morale and accountability among teachers.
To help address this disparity, ADP and Miracles in Action are putting together a training course that will equip rural teachers with skills and materials to improve didactic practices, including literacy and math techniques, as well as certification to improve their professional development. The training will include a rigorous design with input from local teachers recognized for excellence by the Ministry of Education; instructional tool kits; continuous follow-up; and monitoring and evaluation.
The first pilot training is taking place in July 2008 in two rural communities, El Cojobal and La Pila. El Cojobal has one of the largest primary schools in rural Patzun; it has 302 students, 11 teachers and a principal, who is also the fourth grade teacher. La Pila, on the other hand, is one of ADP’s most remote communities with a school that struggles to retain both teaching staff and students. Lessons from this pilot will inform the design and roll out of the teacher training in the 2009 school year. We hope this pilot and program will improve the teaching experience for rural primary school teachers, as well as the quality of education our future ADP scholars receive.